Dating App Tinder Exposed its Users Locations

Tinder, the popular mobile dating app that matches people based on how they rate each other’s photographs, briefly exposed the physical location of its users to other people on the service. Tinder CEO Sean Rad believes the security issue came about due to the rollout of Tinder’s Android app last week. It’s since been resolved.

The location information wasn’t visible in the app. But the data files sent to each user’s phone, which could be accessed through a simple hack, contained sensitive information about people recommended by Tinder, including their most recent location while using the app. It also included their Facebook ID, which could be used to identify someone by first and last name.

Tinder hasn’t disclosed the privacy slip to its users, but it confirmed the issue after Quartz asked about it, saying the data was only exposed for a few hours this weekend. ”We had a very, very, very brief security flaw that we patched up very quickly,” Tinder CEO Sean Rad said. “We were not exposing any information that can harm any of our users or put our users in jeopardy.”